


made for another world

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: long and happy was their reign [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Character Study, Edmund stays in narnia, Fairy Tale Elements, Gay Male Character, Happy Ending, Homophobia, M/M, Magic, POV Caspian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-12-07 05:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18230255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Let me tell you a fairytale about Caspian the Seafarer, King Consort to the Once and Future King, who sailed the seven seas and brought peace to Narnia.Let me tell you the tale of a Prince who gave up his kingdom to a man who was once a man but not yet a man again, who fell in love with the man he’d ceded his throne to and never felt resentment towards his husband.Let me tell you the story of a man who blew on a horn he’d always been told was relic of demon times, trusting it to save him from the uncle who had just tried to murder him.Let me tell you a love story.





	made for another world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quecksilver_Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/gifts).



> Title is from C.S. Lewis.
> 
>  
> 
> I know this series is being updated at the most glacial of paces, but I hope there are people who still care about this 'verse. I also hope that you guys all enjoy this story.

_I’m kissing you now — across_

_The gap of a thousand years._

**-Marina Tsvetaeva**

 

Let me tell you a fairytale about Caspian the Seafarer, King Consort to the Once and Future King, who sailed the seven seas and brought peace to Narnia.

Let me tell you the tale of a Prince who gave up his kingdom to a man who was once a man but not yet a man again, who fell in love with the man he’d ceded his throne to and never felt resentment towards his husband.

Let me tell you the story of a man who blew on a horn he’d always been told was relic of demon times, trusting it to save him from the uncle who had just tried to murder him.

-

Caspian the Tenth grows up in a kingdom where magic is a thing of the past, where prayer itself is considered childish, where the phrase “Dios save us” was a phrase said with mockery, not sincerity.

Aslan and the Golden Rulers are fairytales told to him as a child, by the Professor- they are magical stories full of strange characters and creatures, long ago heroes obscured by myth and fable. There are drawings of them that show fair-haired Peter alongside his raven-haired siblings, all of them in armor and great silks, holding weapons and cordials and riding horses that the Professor tells him once Talked.

Then he meets them, and they are warriors and leaders with eyes too old for their child bodies. They aren't legends, they're people, but they're people who are more than they appear. They are not just children in out-of-fashion clothing, soldiers in old armor- they are heroes and kings and queens, masquerading in unassuming bodies. They are too many years compacted under too young skin, a strange age to their eyes.

But even with the young bodies, the plain faces, the uncalloused hands, Caspian still takes notice, specifically, of Edmund, eternally undermentioned in the tales, compared to his vivacious older sister and heroic younger sister and leaderly older brother.

His tale has always fascinated Caspian- a tale of an underloved boy, who betrayed his family as a child and then spent the rest of his life trying to make up for his mistake. He nearly died on several battlefields, including that very first one where only his sister's cordial brought him back from death.

Caspian can't help but relate to Edmund, to the desire to do what's right, to use what abilities and strengths he has to help the country he loves.

When Edmund turns back at the tree and decides to stay, Caspian can't say that he's surprised.

-

Sometimes Edmund speaks, and Caspian can see the age. He can see the hero. He can see the brother and husband and King. He can see the boy who grew up twice over, who made himself something after nearly destroying everything.

He can hear another world in Edmund’s words, can hear the world the Pevensies call England, and can hear something old and Narnian as well, a time long ago and long dead.

He can see every facet of Edmund, depending on the day. He can see the boy who betrayed his family and the boy who saved a kingdom and the boy who made himself a sword because he was the only one of his siblings not to get a gift from Father Christmas.

And oh, how Caspian doesn’t see the Traitor King. He never does- it’s only Edmund the Just, trying his best to make things right, trying to be the King he was made a thousand years ago.

Over the course of three years, Caspian gets to know Edmund quite well. Edmund is a great King, and not just because of legend. He is genuinely good at what he does, a diplomat with a silver tongue, a strategist with a steel-trap mind, and not a half-bad swordsman (and actually quite wonderful if given two blades instead of the traditional one). Caspian honestly has no idea why the legends took such little mention of his good deeds and his strengths as a ruler.

Edmund's not just great in the usual skills of rule- he is also incredibly humble and kind, always looking out for others over himself. He can play a harp and can actually bake a rather nice traditional Narnian chocolate tart laced with Calormen spices. He also has a rather witty sense of humor, one that Caspian cannot replicate but can enjoy rather well.

And beyond that- Edmund and Caspian just get along well. They do a good job ruling the kingdom together, integrating Telmarine and Narnian traditions and people together as well as forming new treaties and relationships with the countries around them, such as Archenland and Calormen. Many a night ends with a toast in the dining room, Telmarine and Narnian wineglasses full of Archen wine raised in congratulations to their work.

(When Caspian is faced with that proud smile so often, it is no real wonder that Caspian falls in love.)

-

Let's tell a fairytale about a man who fell in love with another man despite the fact that he was raised without a belief that such a kind of love could exist.

Let's tell a fairytale about a King who ceded his throne without protest, who smiled when another man became High King, who fell in love with the man who took his throne.

Let's tell a fairytale that begins with an assassination and ends with a happily-ever-after.

-

Marrying Edmund is a concept that is unknown under Telmarine law. The idea that two men could be wed- it is a foreign one, considered nearly unnatural.

But under Narnian law, hundreds of years buried, resurrected by a King with too many years under his skin, such a marriage is entirely legal. Not only is it legal, but it is considered a glorious thing, Narnia's two Warrior Kings marrying and joining their legacies and kingdoms together. 

Caspian is all too proud to be King Consort to Edmund’s High King. He knows that Edmund is better suited to being High King than he himself is, and besides, he never dreamed of the job in the first place. He does not want it, not when he knows that Edmund will do such a better job, that his eyes are always brighter when the weight of the crown is on his brow.

Edmund has no proper coronation- rather, he claimed his title again at Caspian's coronation and everyone recognized him as the King of legend, the man whose face is on old statues and was whispered among the Narnians like gospel.

No one in Caspian's kingdom calls Edmund traitor- no, to his kingdom, half Narnian and half Telmarine, Edmund is nothing but their High King, Just ruler, their King and sovereign.

And Caspian couldn't be prouder. 

-

'Til the day he dies, Caspian remains fascinated by magic and fairytales. He listens well to any warlocks, witches, and magicians that make their way through Narnia. 

But most of all, he is fascinated by the strange contraption his friend (and then betrothed and then husband) calls a torch. Caspian is crowned King, and that night- after a kiss and a confession- Edmund shows him that torch, so unlike anything Caspian has ever seen.

As a side project, Caspian works with some of the greatest Telmarine and Narnian inventors on figuring out a way to continue to power the torch, eventually turning even to Narnian witches and wisewomen. Some attempts come close, sparking light for a moment or two, but none seem to keep the torch going for very long.

The answer actually ends up coming from their favorite grumpy advisor Trumpkin, who ends up using traditional dwarvish explosion techniques, combined with a small cord of magical thread sewn by a few brownies from the West. With a few deft movements by Reepicheep, who is all too happy to help with the device, the dwarf-altered cord clicks in and Edmund now has a fully functioning torch.

It actually ends up becoming a wedding gift, Edmund officially handing possession of the torch over to Caspian the night they're married. It's such a small gift, compared to everything that diplomats and their people have given them, but it means a lot to Caspian. The work that he and his advisors have put into it, as well as his childhood love of magic, has made Caspian quite attached to the small device.

That night and so many nights afterward, Caspian kisses Edmund’s lips, tastes Narnian strawberries and Calormen spices on his mouth, and he names it home. He finds a love and a family and a place for himself with Edmund, earns himself a fairytale with a happy ending and a true love for the ages.

“You’re a dork,” Edmund says, using that strange slang of his own world, and Caspian just smiles back at his husband and High King.

"And you are the love of my life," Caspian replies, placing a kiss on the corner of Edmund's lips.

Edmund's smile softens. "And you're the love of mine." He pulls Caspian in for a deeper kiss, and Caspian knows what magic feels like.

-

For three years, it is just Edmund and Caspian without any other Pevensies. He and Edmund are two orphans living and loving each other without extended families to support them.

Caspian doesn’t think he’ll ever meet any of Edmund’s siblings again, and to be honest, he doesn't quite miss them. He sometimes wishes that they were there for Edmund, like at their wedding, but he only knew them for a couple of months. They didn't really make much of a stamp on his heart.

He's only really sad at how sometimes, he finds Edmund sitting in the window seat of their rooms, staring at Caspian's old picture book, at the drawings of him and his siblings.

Caspian sits down across from him and Edmund looks up. "I know they are happy," he says, "But that doesn't mean that I don't miss them."

Caspian smiles and nods. "I understand," he says, placing a gentle hand on Edmund's knee, and Edmund gives him a soft, small smile.

(Because despite Edmund's occasional grief or longing, Caspian knows he never regrets his decision to stay. Edmund chose to stay, to help Narnia, and how Caspian respects and loves that.)

-

Then Edmund's siblings start to return, to make their way back to Narnia, bringing cousins and fiances with them, and Caspian has to learn how to have a family other than his advisors and his husband.

He becomes friends with Peter and Lucy and Eustace and Anna-Mae, and it's a lot easier to see them all as normal humans this time around rather than as legends and fairytales. Caspian's time around Edmund has shown him that legends can be just as human and ordinary as the rest of the human race.

Together they begin a new dynasty, neither Telmarine nor English, ostensibly Narnian but something a little bit more, if Caspian is honest. Their children- Rilian, Mary, and Kala- are adopted from three different cultures, Telmarine, Narnian, and Calormen. Mary is their heir, but Rillian and Kala are her closest advisors and her best friends. Mary ends up marrying a woman, a merchant from Calormen named Safiyya, and becomes Queen. She names Rillian's children her heirs, and Caspian knows that he and Edmund are leaving their kingdom in good hands.

-

Let me tell you a fairytale in which a King marries a King on a beautiful summer's day after building a kingdom that they rule together, honorable and Just and Seafaring until the end of their days.

Let me tell you a story that ends with the two of them, young again, living forever after in Aslan's world together. 

Let me tell you a tale that ends with a once-young Prince, scared of the love in his chest, becoming a legend whose name is remembered just as much as his husband's is.

Let me tell you a love story.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone likes this! I didn't like it as much as I loved Eustace's, but I'm still quite proud of this one.


End file.
